Norway reads iTunes Music Store EULA, hires angry lawyers

While the rest of us are blindly clicking away those EULAs to get to the booty behind, some stalwart Norwegians actually took the time to read the terms and conditions over at Apple's iTunes Music Store and got mighty miffed in the process. Calling the agreement "grossly unreasonable" which, among other complaints, requires Norwegian consumers to consent to English law while the music store reserves the ability to change the rights to the downloaded music even while disclaiming all liability for possible damage their software may cause -- er, Sony BMG rootkit debacle anyone? Sure, the Norwegian Consumer Council singled out iTunes to make a high-profile point since Apple's agreement is not all that dissimilar from all the other click-through agreements we ignore. In fact, the council now plans to go after the other downloading services operating in the country. Of interest, however, is that the initial complaint also wanted to force Apple to open their FairPlay DRM like the French (and Danes) before them. However, that complaint was apparently ignored without comment by Norway's Consumer Ombudsman. Apple now has until June 21 to voluntarily change the terms or risk yet another costly lawsuit.

[Via MacRumors]

[saleh @ Jun 7th 2006 12:36PM]

ohboy, if only we had the govt. here reading the EULA we blindly agree to. i feel a lot of them are unreasonable, but since the chances of such items being invoked are very rare, agree to it anyways.

[Rohit @ Jun 7th 2006 1:26PM]

Freaks!

[Raikage @ Jun 7th 2006 1:26PM]

Ahhh Angry Lawyers, The most intimidating of the species "Lawyer"...well the only way to compare them is to see how fanatical they are compared to Jack Thomson...and my mother....
P.S. iTunes eats babies!

The Raikage

[Stubb @ Jun 7th 2006 2:27PM]

Woo hoo! Norway is mentioned in Engadget!

Heia Norge! :p

[Stephen Hale @ Jun 7th 2006 2:54PM]

OK so they dont agree to the License agreement. Then they dont have to use the product. Nobody is forcing them to use iTunes or buy iPods for that matter.

[TC @ Jun 7th 2006 3:31PM]

Stephen: No one is forcing the Norwegian government to allow Apple to sell it's goods in Norway either; the point here is that if Apple want some lovely Norwegian cash they will have to play by the rules of the country they sell in, not just impose their own corporate laws on those that buy the product.
iTunes is crippled by the draconian DRM it uses. It won't let you convert purchased music to Mp3 so you can use a non-Apple audio player. You have to burn the AAC's to CD and then convert that to Mp3; so if you don't buy an iPod to listen to your own music, it'll be a pain to get it on another player. This would be considered monopoly leverage in most countries, and should be changed (how about allowing the consumer to choose what format to download for example)
The problem Apple faced is they have had to initially be lapdogs for the record labels or risk the closure of iTunes. Now with declining CD sales and hightened reliance on downloaded tracks, Apple should be in a position to fight a bit more - and hopefully have a chance at turning iTunes into something decent.

[Andrew @ Jun 7th 2006 8:58PM]

The real problem here that most readers won't understand is the difference between European civil law and the British/American Common Law systems. Norway subscribes to the Scandinavian variety of continental civil law and has very strong consumer protection laws. Standard EULAs written for US companies and consumers are often in violation of even the basic rights Norwegian consumers enjoy. If Apple wants to continue selling to Norwegian customers it has to obey and abide by Norwegian law. As some have suggested Apple could just pull the plug - however these rights are often the results of common European views and conventions. So most European nations will have similar concerns when they begin looking at the EULA.

[Jo @ Jun 8th 2006 9:11AM]

You might be interested in the Consumer Council of Norway's original complaint leading up to the Ombudsman's decision:
http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2006/1149587055.44

[The Snapple @ Jun 8th 2006 7:52PM]

i was shocked to see my country norway on the front page of engadget...

i think im gonna follow this case... would be nice to see apple go fuck them self...( running on my 4th ipod paid by the garantee... running on my 6th set of earbuds... not coverd by the garantee $30 pricy but its norway... and apple...)

[Stig @ Jun 15th 2006 11:56AM]

Disclaimer: I am a Norwegian who does not live in Norway, and I like Apple computers and even Apple iPods.

However my point is that it is OK to be a Norwegian, while still disagreeing with the Norwegian Ombudsman, and also it is OK to be a fan of Apple Computer including their iPods, while still disagreeing with their iTunes business and the sale of compressed music with DRM attached.

The most interesting points of the Norwegian Ombudsman's complaint against iTunes is:

(1) Whether Apple can use DRM to limit their Itunes Music Files to be played on only their iPods:

It is important to understand that attaching a DRM to downloadable music is a requirement coming from trhe Record Companies and Music Industry, and not from Apple or any other seller of downloadable music. Attaching a DRM was a prerequisite for getting permission to resell the music in the first place.

Why do you think the Record Companies are so silent and absent from this debate? It sounds like it is a fight between governments and Apple computer, while the real issue is that Record Companies are more trhan interested in selling the same music over and over again on different media, and also with diffferent DRMs attached to it.

It is also interesting to notice that usually also computer software and game software are limited to only be useable on one type of compatible machines. If you want another version of the same software (if availlable) for another type of machine, you need to make another purchase for the other machine. It is also worth noticing that Apple's agreement with the record companiesand/or owners of the rights to the music is based on the fact that the music should be confined to use on only this one type of player. Also in this connection it is worth noticing that it is in the record companies' interest that the same music (same artist, same song) is sold as many times as possible on as many media as possible so it creates the greatest total revenue to the record companies.

As seen from Apple's (and the record companies') point of view, removing the DRM (or making it playable on any MP3 etc player, it would violate the original agreement, and the entire business model would collapse. So the Norwegian legal attempt could make a domino effect of destroying the entire business model of downloadable music, not only concerning Apple, but any other such reseller off music on the internet..

On the other hand, the Norwegian Ombudsman's attempt to protect the consumer against iTunes would be much better served by announcing to the same consumer that the same music is availlable in uncompressed form (1411kbps vs 128kbps) without any restricting DRM at roughly the same price if you buy the CD versus buying the compressed files with DRM from iTunes. Who in their right mind is wasting their money on this. The answer is: The same consumer who the Ombudsman is trying to protect. Moral: The Consumer obviously needs protection against his own stupidity.

(2) The restriction of consumers right to compensation.

If the Norwegian Ombudsman gets through with his demand that the software supplier (in this case a music file) is to be responsible for the hardware if damaged by a virus who presumeably got through a security hole in the software, we will see a gigantic can of worms open up making every computer software manufacturer responsible for any possible hardware damage caused either directly or indirectly by the software itself (the legal system would get very busy and tied down if this was made into law). This works against common practise in the entire software industry, and I suspect it would seriously reduce the amount of availlable software and slow down to the extreme any development of new software.

I seriously do not think the Norwegian ombudsman understand the implications of his demand, especially if this became the worldwide norm.

(3) Application of cooling off period to electronic sales of music and other software.

This is an extremely shortsighted and ignorant demand from the Ombudsman, since obviously returning a (by that time copied) music and/or other software to the seller for a monetary refund would make it entirly unintersting for any electronic reseller of music and/or other software to operate at all.

Maybe Norway will become the first entirely commercially software free country in the world!

*************

This much said; I agree with many other commments herin (Digg.com) that the inteligent consumer should be more than capable of buying music in a form that has no DRM attached and also is not compressed (like various downloadable music files, not only iTunes). It is simply STUPID to buy them when the same music is availlable on CD (and also sometimes LP and other formats) for pretty much the same money.

And I remind you that iPods from Apple (that I personally like, and have bought several) can very well be used for playing uncompressed music files ripped from my own (and paid for) CD's. I do not have a single DRM file on any of my iPods, and they sound a hell of a lot better than any compressed iTunes file with DRM (I have tried other friend's players with such files).

Cheers!